Israeli strike in Syria kills Iranian commander

A senior Iranian commander was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Syria, says Iranian media.

Seyyed Razi Mousavi was an experienced military adviser to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.

It says he was killed in an air strike on the Sayyida Zeinab area south-east of Damascus.

Israel has carried out military strikes in Syria for years, against what it says are Iran-linked targets.

The strikes have increased in frequency over the past months following Hamas' attack on October 07.

Iranian forces have been present in Syria since the early stages of the Syrian civil war, where they helped support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against widespread rebellion to his rule.

Mousavi is said to have been an aide to IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by the United States in 2020.

He was one of most senior IRGC operatives in Syria, according to Tasnim, and helped co-ordinate the relationship between Tehran and Damascus.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that Israel would pay for this crime.

There has been no immediate comment from Israel's military, which rarely discusses cross-border strikes.

Earlier this month, Iran accused Israel of killing two members of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria.

 

US strikes Iran backed facilities in Syria

The US military carried out multiple air strikes in Syria on Thursday night against Iran-aligned groups whom it blamed for a drone attack that killed an American contractor, wounded another and also hurt five US troops, the Pentagon said.

Both the attack on US personnel and the retaliation were disclosed by the Pentagon at the same time late on Thursday.

The attack against US personnel took place at a coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1038 GMT on Thursday, it said.

The US intelligence community assessed that the one-way attack drone was Iranian in origin, the military said, a conclusion that could further aggravate already strained relations between Washington and Tehran.

Although US forces stationed in Syria have been targeted by drones before, fatalities are extremely rare.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the retaliatory strikes were carried out at the direction of President Joe Biden and targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

"The air strikes were conducted in response to today's attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC," Austin said in a statement.

"No group will strike our troops with impunity."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war in Syria, said the US strikes had left eight pro-Iranian fighters dead in Syria.